Chapter Twenty-Three
Jessica’s apartment is on a dead-end street, bookended by a sub shop on one corner and a package store on the other.
Triple-decker houses make up the rest of the blighted neighborhood.
Each building is in a different stage of neglect, from plywood-covered windows and graffiti-tagged siding to broken fencing and sagging front porches.
Jessica could slam the door in my face and refuse to talk to me.
Jessica could tell me she doesn’t remember Tom.
She could tell me Carson was solely responsible for the fire and for William’s death, which means Tom wasn’t involved in the fire and I have no idea what his letter is about.
Lakshmi parks across from number twenty-five, in front of a fire hydrant, the only free spot.
Grace said Jessica lives in apartment two, which Diana assumes is on the second floor.
The windows are dark, curtains pulled tight.
Diana was too nervous to eat before they left home, and hunger makes her stomach ache, spasms shooting through her midsection.
“What do you want to do?” Lakshmi asks, looking at her watch. “It’s 10:53 a.m.”
“Wait thirty minutes or so, until she’s had time to call her daughter.”
Lakshmi taps her paint-stained fingers on the steering wheel. “How about we check to make sure this is her place? If we have to wait, we should be sure this is where she lives.”
“How would we do that?”
“I go up to the house to look at the mailbox.”
This suggestion makes Diana’s heartbeat speed up. “Maybe we should stay here.”
“If that’s what you want.” Lakshmi’s tapping slowly progresses to full-on drumming, the rhythmic beat pulsing out a message. Go, go, go.
“Okay, fine,” Diana says, unable to stand the tension anymore.
Lakshmi leaps out of the car and steals across the street, weaving between the other parked cars, several of which look as if they’ve been in their spots for years, their windows crusted with dirt.
She steps gingerly up the front stairs and stands in front of the door.
A moment later the car door opens, and Lakshmi hands Diana her phone.
On the screen is a photo of the mailbox.
Apartment 1: Kuras
Apartment 2: O’Connor/Desjardins
Apartment 3: Sampaio
“Who’s Desjardins?” Lakshmi asks.
“A roommate? A boyfriend? I have no idea.”
“Now we wait.”
“Yes, we wait.” Diana rolls down her window.
The sky is clear, but the air feels heavy, the barometric pressure dropping at an uncomfortable rate.
She estimates she can sit here for one hour before she begs Lakshmi to put the car in Drive and flee.
She mulls over the prospect of leaving without talking to Jessica but remembers Duncan’s words: You tell me the hard stuff is worth it.
Don’t give up and all that. Well, you can’t either.
She has to stay, for her children’s sake and for Grace’s. And for herself.
“One thing’s been bothering me,” Lakshmi says.
“Only one?”
“Yes, well, this is the biggest one. Why did Tom leave you the letter? In the time capsule, of all places? I can’t sort that one out.”
“I can’t either.” Diana has wrestled with this one and been unable to come up with a satisfactory explanation. “I wish—”
She is interrupted by a thud as the door to number twenty-five opens and crashes against the house.
Diana crouches in her seat, watching from the corner of her eye.
Lakshmi shifts closer. A man stomps down the front steps.
His hair is stuffed into an unkempt ponytail, and he wears a sleeveless shirt and jeans.
His arms are covered in tattoos. He lights a cigarette and takes a long drag, slowly blowing out the smoke.
He spits onto the sidewalk and staggers away from the house, moving as if being vertical is a new concept.
“Is he Sampaio or Kuras?” Lakshmi whispers.
“Or Desjardins? The possible roommate/boyfriend? I hadn’t thought about there being someone else.”
“I did.”
“That’s why you came, isn’t it?” Diana asks.
“Let’s hope Mr. Cigarette stays out of the house.”
When the clock on Diana’s phone indicates it’s 11:20 a.m., she pulls down the car’s visor to check her makeup.
She’s chewed off her lipstick, so she takes a few seconds to reapply, hoping the dark-pink color makes her look less pale and nervous.
She drops the lipstick back in her purse, zips it closed, and tucks her hair behind her ears.
“It’s time. You stay here, Lax. It might intimidate her if there’s two of us. ”
“No way. I’m coming with you.”
Diana smiles gratefully and walks with Lakshmi to the house and through the unlocked front door. Diana listens to Lakshmi’s sure steps behind her as they climb the stairs.
A crooked silver metal 2 hangs on a door on the second-floor landing. Diana touches the number and knocks, tentative at first and then with force.
There’s a slow shuffling as someone comes to the other side of the door. The deadbolt clanks, and the latch turns. The door swings open to reveal a tall, rangy woman wearing a black camisole and underwear, her bleached hair hanging limply around her pinched face.
“Who are you?” The woman squints at Diana and Lakshmi, her eyes darting between the two women. “What do you want?”
She imagined Jessica differently. More solid, less worn.
“Are you Jessica O’Connor?”
“Fuck no, I’m Nikki. You looking for Jess? I haven’t seen her in months.”
Diana hadn’t considered Grace’s information could be inaccurate. “She’s not here? Where did she go?”
“No idea. She moved out last year. She disappeared one day while I was at work. She left behind a bunch of furniture. Even some clothes.” Nikki speaks deliberately, enunciating each word, her tongue clicking against the roof of her mouth.
“I tried calling her, like, five times but could never get a hold of her.”
“Do you have her forwarding address?” Lakshmi asks.
“No, she left without telling me anything.” Scowling, Nikki opens an overflowing drawer in a dresser by the front door and grabs a stack of paper. She thrusts it at Diana. “She got mail here for a while after. You give it to her. I don’t want it.”
Heavy footsteps clump up the stairs. Lakshmi puts her hand on Diana’s arm.
“What’s going on?”
Mr. Cigarette appears on the landing, carrying a six-pack of beer and a plastic bag imprinted with the name of the corner sub shop. As he slouches past Diana, she smells his body odor and a strong vinegar scent and reflexively steps back, bumping into Lakshmi.
“These people are looking for Jess,” Nikki explains as he joins her inside the apartment. “I told them she’s gone and we haven’t heard from her.”
Mr. Cigarette puts his arm around Nikki, and her face is in his armpit.
Diana squeezes Lakshmi’s hand to keep from retching.
“She was a real partier, wasn’t she, babe?
You guys into that?” His eyes trail up Diana’s body and then Lakshmi’s.
When he notices Diana watching him, he winks. “Why don’t you come on in?”
Lakshmi yanks Diana toward the stairs. “Not our scene, thanks.”
Diana glances back when she and Lakshmi reach the front door. Nikki and Mr. Cigarette stand in the apartment doorway. When they notice Diana looking, they slam the door shut, and the crooked 2 swings.
Lakshmi propels Diana across the street and into the car. Of all the outcomes Diana fantasized about, not being able to find Jessica hadn’t crossed her mind. It isn’t until she and Lakshmi are inside the car, with the doors locked, she realizes she’s still holding Jessica’s mail.
“What am I going to do with this?” Diana flips through the pile. Most of it is junk, but at the bottom is a cell phone bill.
Lakshmi points to the bill’s postmark. “This is from thirteen months ago. Tell me again: Why did you believe she lived here?”
“Grace said she lived in Nashua and called her daughter every Sunday morning. I assumed her information was accurate. That was so stupid of me. Jessica could be anywhere, Lax.”
“This isn’t—”
Diana rips open the envelope.
“Wait!” Lakshmi says. “It’s a crime to open someone else’s mail.”
“I’m amazed Nikki and Mr. Cigarette never opened it.” Diana scans the pages. “I didn’t think people got paper copies of their bills anymore. You’d think she’d have signed up for electronic statements.”
“Diana!”
“Okay, okay,” she says, skimming the pages. “There are a bunch of numbers here with Massachusetts area codes: 617, 781, 413.”
“That doesn’t mean she’s nearby,” Lakshmi says. “You have her number, don’t you?”
Diana removes the paper with Jessica’s phone number from her purse and compares it to the last four digits on the bill. “It’s the same. Strange that Grace had the right phone number but was wrong about where Jessica lives.”
“Call her. Or text her.”
“And say what? Coming here was hard enough. I thought if she saw me, maybe I could convince her to tell me what she knows. Via text, she could ignore me. Or block me. Like she’s clearly doing to Nikki.”
“Come on, call her. Give it a try.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
Lakshmi waits, her head tilted to the side. She starts humming, a smile growing on her face.
Diana groans. “Celine Dion?”
“It’s about not giving up.” Lakshmi claps her hands. “Would you like me to sing? My voice isn’t as good as Celine’s, of course.”
“Point made,” Diana concedes. “I’ll call her. Just don’t sing.”
As she dials, her stomachache from earlier returns. With the last number, a beep sounds. This number is not in service.
“A dead end.” Diana hands the phone to Lakshmi and collapses against the seat. All the adrenaline that pumped through her as she climbed the stairs is gone, and she’s drained. It’s time to go home.
Lakshmi listens to the recording and returns the phone to Diana. “It’s not a dead end. It’s a bump in the road. You’re going to have to figure out another way to get to her. That’s all.”
“I—”
“You what?”
“Nothing.”
“Hmm,” Lakshmi says, waiting for what else Diana has to say.
Diana fiddles with the pile of mail. “I thought I knew Tom. I thought he trusted me. That what we had was real.”
Lakshmi’s seat squeaks as she shifts to face Diana. “Your marriage was real. He did love you.”
“Why didn’t he tell me about all of this when he was alive?”
“Maybe he couldn’t?”
“What do you mean?”
“We keep part of ourselves secret, Diana. All of us do. I think of how desperately I wanted to quit my job. I wanted that for years, but I didn’t want to disappoint Ramesh.
I convinced myself he’d think less of me if I wasn’t a successful lawyer.
It took that harassment suit for me to see how stupid that was.
He was thrilled when I told him I wanted to try a new career.
He’d been worried for some time that I wasn’t happy at work.
I had no idea he felt that way. Opening up earlier would have been better for both of us.
” Lakshmi tugs at her braid. “My story isn’t the same as Tom’s, of course, but the idea we all keep a part of ourselves hidden is true, isn’t it?
Maybe there are always limits to knowing someone else. Even when we love them.”
“That means everyone is keeping secrets.” Diana is keeping a secret, too, isn’t she?
Chris. He called last night, and they talked for an hour after the kids went to bed.
While neither of them made any promises, he did ask to see her again.
Diana used Duncan and Phoebe as an excuse to put him off, though that will only work for so long.
“Is it a secret?” Lakshmi continues. “Or is it protecting a part of yourself you’re not ready to show?
I keep coming back to the purpose of the letter.
What did he want you to do with it? Did he expect you to track down Grace and Jessica?
Or did he only want to warn you about those ‘other people’?
Though if it was the latter, a direct approach would have been much better. ”
“I have no idea,” Diana sighs.
“Maybe Jessica is the key to all of this.”
“Maybe.” Diana stuffs Jessica’s mail and the paper with Jessica’s contact details into her purse and drops it on the car floor.
“I need you to make me a promise,” Lakshmi says, as she clips in her seat belt. “Mr. Cigarette and Nikki were . . . concerning. I’m worried about your safety as you take this forward. Promise me you’ll be careful.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“You have to tell someone where you are, okay? No looking for Jessica without telling me or your family how to find you.”
“I promise.”
“And we’re going to enable location sharing on our phones so I can always find you.”
“I already have that set up with my parents and Andrea, but, yes, we can do that, too.” Diana squeezes Lakshmi’s forearm. “I’m really grateful for your help.”
Lakshmi offers a small smile and restarts the car. As she drives them out of the neighborhood, toward Alcott, Diana keeps her eyes fixed on number twenty-five.